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I have a nifty planter that is 24 in long and 20 in wide. I have it slated for 2 tomato plants. I was wondering if I could trench them laying parallel to each other? In other words, their original root ball would overlap a bit. My planting date is still several weeks off, so I wanted to get the story straight before I tried.

@hruten wrote:I have a nifty planter that is 24 in long and 20 in wide. I have it slated for 2 tomato plants. I was wondering if I could trench them laying parallel to each other? In other words, their original root ball would overlap a bit. My planting date is still several weeks off, so I wanted to get the story straight before I tried.

Thanks!

That's a 20 gallon tub.

I suspect it will work. I made a self watering /sub irrigated / Earth box out of a 20 gallon tote, and it's doing fine (hopefully i can say the same thing come July.

hruten, your tomato plants should do just fine as you've described. Last year was a wet, cold summer (aka 'green tomato summer') here, and the four tomatoes that gave us ripe fruit by middle of July were all container grown. The tomato plants in long bed next to fence didn't have ripe fruit until September!

I don't grow any of those type but I think the roma is a determinate and would be better in the 16" pot. As for the others, depending on how big they are when you plant them and the 12" depth of your box you shouldn't have to trench them. If you do need to just angle one towards the back and one towards the front. I would set the cages in place to see where the center is then dig down and over if needed. Plant tomato's and set cages. I would also suggest securing the cages to the planter or something with string as both of those tomato plants can get very big and heavy.

If you would like the extra anchoring & root system trenching provides, you can still take off the lower leaves and plants them DEEPER into the pot since it's 12" leaving just a few leaves above ground.

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